Posts Tagged ‘privacy’
Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012
I’m not sure if I agree with this or not, but the author definitely raises some interesting points …
This week, Google was found out to have been bypassing privacy settings in both Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Apple’s Safari web browsers, as Martin reported here. In a statement on their blog, the Corporate Vice-President of IE blogged “IE blocks third-party cookies unless the site presents a P3P Compact Policy Statement indicating how the site will use the cookie and that the site’s use does not include tracking the user. Google’s P3P policy causes Internet Explorer to accept Google’s cookies even though the policy does not state Google’s intent.”
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Tags: cookies, facebook, google, microsoft, privacy, security
Posted in General News, privacy, security | No Comments »
Wednesday, February 8th, 2012
It’s kind of cool that Google is at least offering to pay people for this information … but also kind of sad to watch the internet slowly morph into a gigantic market research tool.
As soon as you start using the Internet, your actions are tracked by specialized companies. This not only includes web server logs but also third party tracking through advertisement, social networking scripts and other third party scripts.
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Tags: browsing habits, google, internet usage, market research, privacy
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Thursday, February 2nd, 2012
It always creeps me out when an advertiser seems to know a little bit too much about me … stuff like that usually sends me running in the opposite direction.
Last week Google announced changes to its privacy policy that, on the face of it seem perfectly reasonable. In essence they want to treat all the different Google services you use as a single big account and share the data. What this ultimately means though is that the company will know absolutely huge volumes of information about you.
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Tags: bing, google, hotmail, microsoft, privacy
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Friday, January 27th, 2012
Here’s an interesting tool for those of us who are concerned about privacy (and/or those of us who want to check up on our kids’ online activities …)
Keeping track of all your history items can be quite the feat if you are using more than one browser. Privacy conscious users usually delete the information regularly, while the majority of users is likely unaware what their web browser and operating system can reveal about them.
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Tags: browser history, history, History Viewer, privacy, Windows history
Posted in privacy, security, software evaluation | Comments Off
Wednesday, January 25th, 2012
These days, the main purpose of most internet services seems to be marketing research and ad delivery … so much for privacy, I guess.
An announcement was posted yesterday on the official Google blog that indicates that changes are being made to Google’s privacy policies and terms of service. What first looks like a reasonable thing to do is in fact something that will keep privacy advocates up at night. Google will merge their privacy policies, of which about 60 are now available, into one main privacy policy. This on first glance is good from a user perspective, as it improves the privacy policy’s accessibility.
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Tags: google, privacy, terms of service, user tracking
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Tuesday, January 24th, 2012
If this actually works the way that it’s supposed to work, it could be an incredibly helpful tool for those of us who are concerned about online privacy …
One of the new features that Microsoft introduced in their Internet Explorer 9 browser was support for so called Tracking Protection Lists. These lists can be installed in the browser to add protection against tracking, and as a side effect many forms of advertisement. A list of common TPLs is available at the Internet Explorer Test Drive website where they can be installed with just two clicks of the mouse.
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Tags: advertisement, ie9, internet explorer, privacy, tracking, tracking protection lists
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Friday, January 20th, 2012
An IP Address Filter provides a good start towards wireless security, but you need to enable encryption in order to discourage determined hackers …
Sharing an Internet connection with other household members or even neighbors is easier than ever. All you need is a solid wireless router with enough reach to give all parties lag- and trouble-free access to the Internet. All you need for that is to set up a wireless router in a location that is ideal for everyone, share the access key and you are good to go. You can add wireless repeaters and other hardware to the mix if you need to cover a wider area.
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Tags: encryption, privacy, security, wireless-network
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Wednesday, January 18th, 2012
… Or, if you’re like me and the part about allowing the program to access your Facebook account makes you nervous, you could just load your Ipod up with the music that you like, and listen to that instead.
Mentor FM is one of those tools that it is pretty awesome and scary at the same time. The Internet radio tunes into your Facebook account to play music that you like. The awesome part is that it usually gets things pretty right in this regard. All you need to do is to give the app permissions to connect to your Facebook account before you can start listening to a playlist that has been specifically made for you.
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Tags: facebook, music, privacy
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Tuesday, January 17th, 2012
If you’re bugged by web sites who constantly try to sell you stuff based on the other sites that you visit, you might want to check this out:
Most Internet users do not know that every step they make on the Internet is likely tracked by one or multiple companies. Tracking can be loosely divided into a first party and third party group. First party tracking is usually connected to the generation of visitor statistics, and less about the individual user. Third party tracking on the other hand can often be linked to advertising companies who either use the information directly for advertisement or sell user profiles to other organizations and companies.
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Tags: cookies, privacy, security, tracking
Posted in privacy, software evaluation | Comments Off
Friday, January 13th, 2012
It will be interesting to see how this story plays out; if successful, this challenge could drastically change the way that Google+ works …
Privacy watchdog that had successfully challenged the search giant over Buzz now calls on regulators to probe Google+
An influential privacy watchdog has asked the US government to investigate Google+, the search giant’s social network, claiming it may violate people’s privacy and raises anti-trust concerns.
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Tags: google, privacy, search
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